“As a man I can be ignored . . . ; but as a symbol I can be everlasting”

In the movie Batman Begins, we see the moment when Bruce Wayne reveals to his loving and ever-faithful butler, Alfred, his intention to become a symbol. Bruce has discovered that his legacy must become more than just his individual efforts. Your business must become your symbol that is everlasting. Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and even Donald Trump have become more than themselves. They can’t do everything themselves. Richard Branson, when asked how he managed so many companies, responded that his key is to do as little in managing the day-to-day as possible.

Your legacy is more than just working like a mad-person. It also means working smart. Leveraging sales, delegation of less important tasks, efficient production systems, proper controls and key measurements are all things we need to get the most of our efforts. Take some time evaluate how you can better utilize your energy and talent to grow your revenue, streamline your resources and ultimately improve your profits.

Your team wants to follow you. They need you to be their hero. The challenge of being a hero is knowing how to slay the dragons, teaching them to slay their own dragons, and not sacrificing the damsel in distress. Following through with your promise, providing a clear path to complete the quest, and holding values above convenience make someone a hero. The same is true whether you are talking about your employees, your clients or your family.

Stare down that dragon. Don’t compromise on values and principles. Lead the people around you using virtue, honesty and fairness. They want to follow.

David Bryant Mitchell is the author of the upcoming book Building Your Booming Business. He is also business coach and consultant that works with business owners and managers to create momentum in their business with strategies and tactics that they can implement today. These strategies are based on the five foundations of business: Marketing, Leadership, Operations, Finance and Systems.

I am a bit of a sci-fi geek. I cut my sci-fi teeth on Star Trek and enjoyed “The Next Generation” as a teen and young adult. I used to watch Captain Picard as he looked at “Number One” Commander Riker and simply said, “Make it so.” Riker always seemed to make it happen. I thought that was how delegation worked. You gave it to your underling and they made it happen. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it works.

Because we are giving them the decision-making tools they will need you to follow through, you will also need to walk your team through the process over and over again. Every time you give your team a new challenge, you are forcing them into a Storming stage and they will need your management and leadership much more intensely than before.

As you teach them to manage themselves, they will need you in every meeting. You will need to direct the conversation and encourage some people’s involvement. It will require your follow-through and attention to detail. After a while, you can then begin to ease out of the manager role, move into a leader roll, and finally into empowerment when you can tell your team “make it so” and all you need back is a report on what will be changing.

Why go through the trouble?

It’s going to be tough. Remember the reasons why you need to delegate more:

Better fulfill your company’s vision

Give your customers a better experience and a deeper relationship with you and your product

Provide your team with a better environment in which to work while eliminating their frustrations

Grow your profits to better support the causes and passion you have

Free you as the leader to live the life you want and reduce the fires you have to squelch on a continual basis.

It’s going to get tough. You’ll lose team members, have strong conflicts with others, and still come out a better team, business, and leader.

I seem to be getting popular these days. Last week, Jim Nemley interviewed me about how a business mastermind SHOULD work. We talked about accountability, openness, confidentiality and that a mastermind is not a networking group or a social outlet.

Check it out below:

Check Out Business Podcasts at Blog Talk Radio with Jim Nemley on BlogTalkRadio

I was recently interviewed on a podcast (online radio show) and wanted to share this with you on my website. You can listen to the podcast below or read the transcript.

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When you run a business there is never a shortage of things that need to get done. But if you have systems and processes in place for how you do things, then you can automate and delegate large portions of your business responsibilities so you can focus on work that will truly have an impact.

Today we’re speaking with Dave Mitchell about how to build systems and processes that you can use to grow your business. Dave works with business leaders to create momentum in their business by focusing on the 5 Foundations of Business, which he’ll share more about in the interview below.

Why did you start your business? I bet it wasn’t to go broke. I bet it wasn’t to work 16-hour days, to see how long you could go without sleep, or to have a constant turn-over of employees. You probably started your business to create a lifestyle and a legacy you could be proud of.

A big part of that lifestyle is making money. Even better than just making a miniscule profit, is developing a business that will actually make you wealthy and allow you to share your wealth the less fortunate.

So let’s start thinking of money as more than just a means to an end. In previous posts, we talked about how price is a communicator. Your ability to turn a profit and build wealth communicates something as well. It communicates how good you really are at what you do. Not just as an artist or technician, but as a wise administrator and steward.

If you have exceeded your customers’ expectations, they want to say thank you. What better way for them to say thank you than with a thank you note with a dollar sign and signed by the US Treasury. Unfortunately, most contractors don’t ask for enough gratitude and don’t manage the “thank you notes” they do get.

We sometimes have a tainted view of money. Many see it as dirty, a necessary evil, or even the root of all evil. It’s important to note that the biblical reference to money as the root of all evil states that the “LOVE” of money is the root of all evil; not the money itself. The desire for abundance and wealth is not evil. It’s difficult to share with others when you barely have enough for your own needs. It’s when we take that money and hoard it for ourselves. It’s when we don’t use it for good purposes. It’s when we use it to harm others that it can become a negative thing.

In days gone-by, the way you showed your appreciation was with a small tip or something of value. Now we expect everything as a “common courtesy.” Free is something we anticipate with every purchase and for every interaction.

Watch the reaction on your server’s face when you give them a healthy tip. See what happens when you readily accept a bid and don’t dicker over the price with your roofer. Money talks and it says a lot about how much you appreciate someone – especially if they deserve it.

Not just collecting what your worth, but also creating greater value out of limited resources is a source of wealth. There is no way to cost-cut your way to prosperity. However, you have to be diligent about not wasting your resources in the process.

Simple philosophy. If you do not have a healthy philosophy and approach to money, you will never be able to amass or keep much of it.

David Bryant Mitchell is a business coach and consultant that works with business owners and managers to create momentum in their business with strategies and tactics that they can implement today. These strategies are based on the five foundations of business: Marketing, Leadership, Operations, Finance and Systems.

We’ve all heard the term “Sacred Cow,” but have you ever wondered what it really means? It is a reference to the Hindi belief that cows are a sacred animal and carry the souls of relatives. They are therefore revered and not used for food. In business we often refer to people, projects, or systems as a sacred cow when they cannot be questioned, criticized, or considered for elimination.

In your business, some of the processes currently in use have become sacred cows and your team will adamantly resist changing them.

The reasons for the resistance are simple. First, your people will resist change because they have adjusted their own habits and workflows to the systems already in place. Changing those processes will require them to change. Second, many of the processes that are currently in use have been developed on the fly by the people using them – namely your people. They are emotionally tied to those process and suggesting that they are changed can imply in their minds that the work they did was not good enough.

Your new announcement to “systematize” or make the business more efficient will be met with skepticism. That’s why the first set of sacred cows you have to sacrifice are your own. There are many aspects of the business that are your baby. It’s something that you put your heart and soul into in order to make it work.

The great part of being an entrepreneur is that when you have a great idea you can direct your energy into the area that excites you the most. However, your entrepreneurial ADD may have taken you down the rabbit hole. Be open for your team, consultant, coach or mastermind group to put the mirror in front of you. Know when to swallow your pride and make a change in yourself. When your team sees you making the sacrifice, it makes it easier for them to place their sacrifices on the altar with yours.

Even though you’ve taken the lead and example of having a willingness to change and it will be easier for them to follow, it will still be difficult for many of them. It won’t happen overnight. In fact, the process of change never ends. The sooner the team realizes that and is willing to accept it, the more efficient your business will become.

David Bryant Mitchell is a business coach and consultant that works with business owners and managers to create momentum in their business with strategies and tactics that they can implement today. These strategies are based on the five foundations of business: Marketing, Leadership, Operations, Finance and Systems.

One of my wife’s many gifts is that she is extremely organized in everything that she does. I, on the other hand, am not that way. I have had to learn as an adult to keep organized and still have to make a conscious effort.

Even for an organized business owner, adding staff and complexity to the business can cause your processes and systems to become a jumbled mess.

Poor systems never start as bad. Usually they occur because the system in place has not responded well to unexpected challenges or new opportunities.

Imagine your original business systems as a single bubble. You’re happy with your bubble. It works and produces the results that you need.

Eventually a new problem or opportunity comes up that you need to address. It’s easier to just add a new system or process instead of growing your system.

However, if you keep adding new processes to every new opportunity, you have a business full of disjointed processes. They sort of fit together, but they are cumbersome and difficult to manage.

To get out of this jumble of un-manageable, independent processes, you have to start looking at your Standard Operating Procedures and see how they fit together, figure out transitions, communication methods, and how to better wow your customers.

You need tighter operating procedures.

Don’t roll your eyes. None of us like the restrictions and the “corporatization” of our businesses. Most of us started our business to get away from the smothering of someone else’s stupid rules. The truth is, great business is somewhere between smothering bureaucracy and flying by the seat of your pants.

By developing written procedures and processes, you create a team that produces the same level of quality as you would if you were doing the job yourself. How detailed and how specific you get with your processes depends on how much decision making can be left to your newest and least experienced employee.

David Bryant Mitchell is a business coach and consultant that works with business owners and managers to create momentum in their business with strategies and tactics that they can implement today. These strategies are based on the five foundations of business: Marketing, Leadership, Operations, Finance and Systems.

As the world becomes more jaded to marketing, it’s become harder for you to get your message heard. Before you throw your hands up in a state of overwhelm, let’s break your marketing down to four simple thoughts:

Everything You Do is Marketing

From the product you make, to the price you set, to the follow-through service you provide. Everything is meant for that one purpose of making your customer ecstatic about you and your business.

Be Clear About Your Customer

Would you rather take 100 people through 20% of the sales process or 20 people through 100%? It’s much easier to satisfy the demand when you have the need and the person who needs it clearly defined. You can also more clearly communicate to a specific audience than to a broad one. Expand to other niches when you have the first one well established.

Use Direct-Response Marketing

Branding will happen with time. Don’t get bogged down in logos, names and colors for too long. Make them memorable and then start marketing with the intent of developing a relationship. People do business with those who they know, like, and trust. So why not help them develop that trust?

Think “What’s Next?”

Always have a clear direction for your marketing to take. In old sales training this was often called your funnel. With so many methods of communication and technologies, you can begin to systematize and automate your communication.

One of the biggest challenges to most businesses is how to market themselves. There is a reason why many executives have climbed their way up from the Marketing ranks.

Over the years, I have looked at many strategies, methods and systems for marketing. The type of system that brings the most possible clients to you with the least amount of effort or expense always have the following five attributes:

Marketing is a system – just like every other system in your business.

There has to be an over-riding strategy for it. Just making sales is not sufficient.

The system only works if you stay with it.

Test, evaluate, adjust, repeat.

There are only three methods of investment in your marketing: Cash, Time, and Effort. Of which do you have the most?

There is no silver bullet to marketing. If there was, there would not be so many marketing consultants,sales people, etc. We would all use the same bullet.

As you delve into the different types of strategy, remember that there are two kinds. The first is your Method Strategy. The Method Strategy is the step-by-step process that your customer takes from exposure to the sale. On the other hand, your overall strategy is how each method builds and interacts with your other marketing efforts. By having methods that integrate and work together, you create an exponential model for growth.David Bryant Mitchell is a business coach and consultant that works with business owners and managers to create momentum in their business with strategies and tactics that they can implement today. These strategies are based on the five foundations of business: Marketing, Leadership, Operations, Finance and Systems.

Most of us approach goals the wrong way. What we miss most is some very basic concepts that the Boy Scouts have been using for over 100 years and what video game developers have been adding into their games to make them addicting.

Find out how to use these “addicting” achievement methods for your goals.

David Bryant Mitchell is a business coach and consultant that works with business owners and managers to create momentum in their business with strategies and tactics that they can implement today. These strategies are based on the five foundations of business: Marketing, Leadership, Operations, Finance and Systems.